1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure generally relates to resistance based exercise equipment and more particularly to an arm cord handle for attaching a user's foot to an arm cord connected to a spring biased resistance exercise apparatus such as a reformer exercise apparatus utilized to perform various Pilates exercises.
2. Description of Related Art
Today, many types of exercise devices are available and used for fitness and/or medical reasons to burn off undesired calories, to improve cardiovascular ability, to tone or strengthen muscles, or to improve flexibility, balance, posture, etc. No matter what the desired end goal of a user of exercise equipment may be, almost all types of exercise equipment aid the user to achieve his or her desired goal by exerting some form of adequate and effective resistance against repeated bodily movements of the user.
A reformer is one such exercise device originally developed by Joseph Pilates. A reformer is basically a rectangular frame that sits on a floor and constitutes or carries a pair of stationary parallel rails or tracks. A movable carriage for supporting a user's body is mounted on the rails for movement toward and away from one end, the foot end, of the frame. The carriage is typically elastically biased toward the foot end of the frame by one or more coil springs having one end attached to the carriage and the other to a hook or post on an anchor bar near the foot end of the frame.
A pair of arm cords or ropes 8 that can be grasped by a user are attached at one end to the carriage. Each cord runs through a pulley generally located at the head end of the reformer. The free end of each arm cord typically has a handle or loop removably fastened thereto for the user to grasp with his or her hand. This handle is typically a single closed loop of fabric or leather, or alternatively may be a nested set of two loops, one larger one for large hands and an inner loop for those users with small hands.
Such loops are easily grasped in a user's hand. A user may also perform exercises wherein the user's foot engages the loop. However, during such use a user's foot can slip out of the loop because the user cannot easily grasp the loop itself.
To address this issue, Y-loop handles were developed that can be swapped for the regular hand loops or hard handles. These Y-loop handles are designed to fit a user's foot with one leg of the Y-loop around the user's instep or forefoot and the other leg of the Y-loop behind the user's heel, i.e., around the user's ankle, so as to maintain a more secure connection between the arm cord and the user's foot. A conventional Y-loop handle 10 is shown positioned properly on a user's leg 12 in FIG. 1 and a pair of Y-loop handles 10 is shown separately in FIG. 2.
A disadvantage with the Y-loop handles 10 is that they are separate handles and must be swapped out for the normally used single or double hand loops in order to be used. Furthermore, when the Y-loop handles 10 grasped by a user's hand, the extra loop is jutting out to the side and presents at least a distraction to the user. What is needed is a loop handle design that can also be used as a Y-loop for the user's foot when needed but remains out of the way when used as a regular loop handle. The present disclosure addresses this need.